


Dead or Alive

by FrameofMind



Category: KAT-TUN (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 09:12:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16531673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrameofMind/pseuds/FrameofMind
Summary: AU. Kame’s got a job to do, but the past keeps getting in the way.





	Dead or Alive

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mazauric](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mazauric/gifts).



> **Title:** Dead or Alive  
>  **Pairing:** Akame  
>  **Rating:** NC-17  
>  **Word Count:** ~18,000  
>  **Warnings:** None  
>  **Author’s Note:** Hi Mazauric! I think I managed to incorporate a number of your preferred story elements. Hope this meets with your approval… :-)  
>  **Summary:** AU. Kame’s got a job to do, but the past keeps getting in the way.

Kame is glad he won’t have to stay long.

There’s a stream of black cars and limousines pulling in and out of the circular drive, and the pavement is slick with the afternoon’s rain, except where the portico has kept it dry. Two men and two women with slicked hair in dark dresses and tuxedos stand to either side of the entrance, bowing and welcoming the guests as they unfold themselves from their cars in flashes of glitter and silk. Kame falls in step behind a woman in powder blue with a fox fur stole, nodding distractedly at the man who opens the door for them. Just enough not to be noticed.

Once inside, the woman and her escort wander off to the left to deposit her fox fur at the coat check. Kame stays with the current of people making their way to the other side of the entryway, into the main ballroom.

The house has a slightly colonial feel—that strange mixture of old European grandeur and Southeast Asian detail. The walls of the ballroom have been whitewashed and the chandeliers look smart and modern, but the marble mosaic floor seems too intricate to be new. Along one wall of the room are long trestle tables laid out with food in silver serving dishes, and along the opposite wall sits a string quartet, serenading the room underneath the hum of conversation. Kame accepts a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and dips in between a pair of sequined dresses, surveying the crowd.

So far there’s no one who should recognize him. He knows Tsai by sight from the briefings, but he hasn’t come across him yet. The chief of police is also here, along with a couple of former colleagues of Tsai’s from XS Group. Most of the other guests are unfamiliar, other esteemed members of the Hong Kong elite.

For the first half hour or so, Kame keeps a low profile, making small talk with a few of the guests and trying to remain as forgettable as possible. When it seems like enough people have gathered to keep him inconspicuous, Kame politely excuses himself from a conversation about Hong Kong’s chances in the East Asian Cup and makes his way to the edge of the room. He leaves his barely touched champagne on one of the tables and slips through a door that leads into one of the inner corridors.

There are staff everywhere in here, rushing back and forth with trays and piles of dishes, disappearing into the side passageway that leads to the kitchens, exchanging quick words as they pass each other in one direction or another. Kame pulls a cigarette lighter from his front pocket and glances around as though looking for the exit. The staff take no notice of him as he wanders off down another one of the side corridors, into quieter parts of the house. By the time he reaches the end and turns left toward the back staircase, it’s almost silent.

The schematic in his head must be a couple of renovations old—he ends up in a dead end once where there should be a connection to the eastern wing of the house, and one or two of the bedrooms aren’t where they should be. He steps lightly, listening around every corner—the floorboards are old, which is both an advantage and a disadvantage. Harder to stay silent, but easier to hear someone coming.

No one does.

Finally, he reaches the eastern atrium. The dim corridor opens out into another large entrance hall—the family’s private entrance—and overlooks the open floor below. Things look a little less shiny and polished at this end of the house. The chandelier is a generation or two older than the ones in the main ballroom, and the wooden bannister surrounding the upper floor of the atrium feels worn smooth under Kame’s fingers.

He listens from the shadows for a moment. Tsai and his wife should both still be at the party, and as far as he can tell there’s no one else but the staff who should be hanging around the private wing. And presumably most of them are occupied with the party as well. When he’s satisfied that he’s alone, he takes the left-hand route around the atrium and follows it almost to the end.

The door is locked, as expected. He drops silently to a knee and takes his pick from his pocket, sliding it into the battered keyhole and feeling for the tumblers. It’s an old lock, hardly complicated. Soon the last one slides into place and the lock clicks, the handle turning reluctantly in its socket.

It’s dark inside as well. All the windows overlook the grounds, and they might be visible from the other end of the house, so he can’t risk turning on a light. But as his eyes adjust, there’s just enough ambient light filtering in to be able to get around. He won’t get out his pocket light unless it’s absolutely necessary.

There’s a laptop computer sitting on the desk, and Kame steps over to it, running his fingertips along the corner of the screen. He’s going to have to… but. Maybe not quite yet. He needs to get a look at the rest of the room too, and on the off-chance Tsai is anticipating a hack…

Better to start somewhere else.

The bookshelf first then, because it’s there, and Tsai seems the type. He’s pretty sure Tsai doesn’t have the key yet, but if he does then he’d be unlikely to hide it in the filing cabinets. Assuming he hasn’t already passed it on.

Kame pulls books aside a few at a time, picking random volumes and checking to see that their titles match their contents and that they don’t have any hidden compartments. Most of them seem to be for show. Eventually he moves aside a shelf of historical texts to reveal a small safe embedded in one panel of the wood.

Perfect.

He’s just about to start picking the lock when he hears a floorboard creak just outside the door.

He replaces the books and silently backs up against the wall beside the breakfront cabinet, keeping it between him and the door. He hears the handle turning, the bottom of the door brushing against the rug. The lights will come on any moment—he starts gauging whether his reflection in the window glass will be visible at that angle, if he should try to slide to the floor first…

But the light stays off.

There’s a footstep, a soft scuff against the floorboards, and he sees the vague shape of someone else stepping over to the desk. Flicking through a few pages of the stack of paper next to the computer, and then quietly replacing them.

Over in the corner, past the couch, there’s another exit—but it leads into a sitting room, and it might have a lock as well. That would leave him exposed. The desk is between him and the doorway into the atrium—he could make a run for it, but unless the other intruder has very slow reflexes, that would be a mistake.

Another shifting creak—a footstep closer, approaching the breakfront. Just a breath away now.

Now.

He launches himself around the corner of the breakfront and leads with an elbow, catching bone, a grunt, deflecting a counterpunch. The breakfront shudders, glass decorations clinking gently against each other, grasping fingers and a huff of breath when an elbow catches Kame in the stomach. He gets the intruder by the collar and shoves him up against the wall, pulls the gun from the back of his own belt and presses it up against the intruder’s chin. The intruder stills, hands open in submission. Lifts his chin a bit, hot breath against Kame’s face.

It’s Jin.

_Fuck_.

Jin’s eyes say the same thing.

Kame shoves back, gets his distance. Gets a second hand on the gun, just to steady it. Steady.

_What the fuck?_

“What are you doing here?” he demands, keeping his voice low, the gun trained between Jin’s eyebrows. Jin stays there against the wall, catching his breath, his hands still held up at his sides. Doesn’t look like he’s planning anything, but then you never fucking know.

Jin gives the gun a pointed look. “You can shoot me if you want,” he says. “But have fun explaining the bleeding corpse you left in this dude’s house.”

“I _said_ what are you doing here?” Kame repeats, keeping the gun right where it is.

“Probably the same thing as you,” Jin says grimly.

Kame frowns.

How does he… How would he even know about this? Why would he care?

Unless…

“Who are you working for?”

“Nobody,” Jin says.

“Bullshit,” Kame hisses.

Jin breathes a bitter laugh. “Why bother asking me questions if you’re not going to believe the answers?”

He doesn’t even look mocking. Just resigned. It makes Kame want to slam him up against that wall again. Harder.

Fucking hell.

Another door slams. Further away, somewhere outside.

They both freeze, listening to footsteps in the atrium—high heels on the polished stone, sharp and echoing. They don’t get any closer though, fade and muffle as they head off into another part of the house.

There’s no time for this.

Kame drops his aim to his side. If Jin is telling the truth, then maybe Kame can at least make use of him. If he’s lying…

Well. If he’s lying, Kame is probably already fucked.

It will be faster with two of them anyway. Kame just needs to watch his back.

“If you’re so sure we’re looking for the same thing, then help me look,” Kame says.

Jin lowers his hands slowly, the ghost of a smile pulling at his lips. Even in the dark, his eyes are somehow warm.

Kame turns away from them.

“Have you gotten onto the hard drive?” Jin asks, stepping away from the wall and back over toward the desk.

Kame slips the gun back under his jacket. “Not yet,” he says. “I was going to check for the physical media first.”

Jin nods and takes a seat at the desk, starts booting the machine to command line. Kame takes a step closer and watches over Jin’s shoulder as Jin starts working his way past the security barriers. He’s managed to gain root access within a couple of minutes—not that Tsai is any kind of computer genius, it’s not surprising that his personal computer’s security would be full of holes, but still. Kame had forgotten Jin was so fast at this.

The letters and numbers on the screen stop moving for a moment, and Kame blinks, wondering why. He glances over at Jin to find him looking back at him, just inches away. Kame isn’t sure when he leaned in so close.

He straightens up again.

“Let me know if you find anything,” he says brusquely. Then he steps away. Tries to remember what he was doing before… before Jin.

Fucking hell.

The safe. He was working on the safe.

It’s not the kind of state-of-the-art hardware Kame would have expected from a guy like this, a guy with billions to spare, but then it’s also built into the furnishings—like the office itself, it seems to be from a renovation or two ago. Still, it’s well maintained and awkwardly placed, so it takes him some time to start making progress, turning the dial carefully and feeling his way through the combination.

“I’m in,” Jin mutters from across the room. Kame glances over at him, but his eyes are still focused on the screen. “There’s not much on here, mostly shit we don’t care about. If he has the file, it must be somewhere else. I can try a few more things, see if he tried to crack it earlier and left traces somewhere.”

“Do you even know what you’re looking for?” Kame asks.

Jin looks up at him. “I know what I’m looking for,” he says flatly. “Do you want to tell me what you’re looking for?”

“Nevermind,” Kame says. He catches Jin’s eyes flicking irritably before he turns back to his work.

He’s almost got the safe open, he can feel it in his fingertips. Just one more.

“Shit. I think I’ve got something,” Jin says.

“What?” Kame turns the wheel a little bit farther, feels the click.

“I don’t know, it’s—hang on, let me just…”

The door to the safe swings free, and Kame peers inside. It’s too dark to see much, but he reaches in and pulls things out carefully—a stack of passports, an old, worn out notebook. A few stacks of large banknotes, with sequential numbers.

Kame replaces the cash—no need for that—but he starts leafing through the passports and the notebook to see if there’s anything that might be useful. A few of the identities in the passports are familiar from the briefing, but some of them are new to him. He snaps pictures of the unfamiliar ones for future reference.

Most of what’s in the notebook is uninteresting—even unintelligible, without context. Financial accountings, scribbled details of transactions. Some of it might be of interest to Tsai’s former employers, things they would probably prefer he had not written down. But Kame doesn’t have any interest in that.

He gets to the end of the used pages in the notebook—nothing of consequence. He’s about to close it up and put it away, but he gives it one last flick through and realizes there’s something written on the second to last page of the book. Small and sideways, near the inner corner. A messy scrawl.

_8.4_

_6734_

_090-5454-3782_

Just that.

The last line is a Japanese phone number. Not one that means anything offhand, but the fact that it’s Japanese seems potentially relevant. XS Group never did business there directly, and as far as he knows, Tsai has done no private business there either.

Or he hadn’t, until recently.

“Fuck,” Jin whispers.

Kame turns around, but Jin’s attention is elsewhere. Looking. Listening. Kame listens too—and then he hears…

Shit. Footsteps—this time, on the upper floor.

Jin is moving quickly at the computer, trying to shut everything down, and Kame has to put the passports and the notebook back where he found them. He closes the safe quietly and spins the dial, puts the books back in front of it.

Jin yanks a flash drive from the side of the laptop and gets up from the desk. Kame heads directly for the door that leads to the sitting room.

Locked. Of course.

As Kame drops into a crouch and feeds the pick into the lock, Jin starts feeling around the hinges, checking to see if there’s a faster way to get through.

“Did you get it?” Kame whispers.

“I think so. Shit.” He’s fingering the lower hinge. “This thing is like rusted together.”

“I’ll get it,” Kame says. “Just give me a minute.”

“We don’t have a minute.”

“Shut up and let me do this.”

Finally the lock comes free. There isn’t time to be cautious—whoever’s out there is right outside the office. They barely have time to duck through and get the door shut behind them before a light appears in the crack underneath.

The sitting room is dark. Nothing but a dim flicker of moonlight falls across Jin’s face as he glances over at Kame. Kame knows that look.

_What now?_

Kame gestures with his head toward the other door, which leads back out to the hallway. Then he grabs Jin by the elbow and leads him around the coffee table, keeping him close. Kame twists the handle carefully, just enough to confirm that the door isn’t locked, but leaves it closed.

He listens for a beat—but the only sounds of movement are still coming from the office. Then he opens the door, just a crack. Peers outside.

Nothing.

He opens it a bit further and glances around the corner. The door to the office seems to be closed again, and there’s no one visible anywhere around the atrium, or as far as he can see down the corridor.

He tugs on Jin’s arm again briefly, a silent signal to stay close, and then he slips out into the corridor.

The entrance down in the atrium is no good—the stone floor is too loud, and too close to the office. They’d never get out undetected. He turns instead down another side corridor and follows it to the far end, where the schematics tell him there should be a narrow stairway leading down from the old servants’ quarters. Unless it’s been eliminated in the renovations…

It’s still there.

It’s narrow, tucked away out of sight, and they’ll be completely screwed if anyone tries to come up while they’re going down—but at least it gets them downstairs. Then it’s only two more corridors before they reach the door leading into the maintenance garage. 

The garage is dark as well, littered with obstacles—stacks of crates and gardening equipment. Kame latches onto Jin’s arm again to lead him through the maze, until finally they reach the side door leading out to the grounds.

Jin sticks close behind him as they dart out around the wide balcony, into the shadow of the first hedgerow. It keeps them out of sight of the house for several meters, long enough to get some distance. Kame pauses briefly at the far end to glance back toward the east wing.

The light is still on in the office. But there’s no sign that any alarm bells have gone off, that any manhunt is taking place. And the curtains are still closed. He can’t see anyone in there.

Once he’s sure they’re not being followed, he leads Jin across the open field and into the tree cover that shields the house from the main road, and follows the driveway from the shadows until they make it back out to the highway.

They need a ride. A taxi, ideally, but Kame would settle for a hitch. The road is narrow and winding, surrounded by trees on either side, and even the lights of the city below are hidden from this angle.

He reaches for Jin’s arm again, but this time only passes through air.

What? How did he…?

Glancing around quickly, he finds Jin about twenty feet away, heading up the road and slipping between the trees. Son of a bitch…

Kame pulls the gun again. “Not another step.”

Jin stops in his tracks, stumbling slightly on the uneven ground.

“Get back here,” Kame says. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

There’s a small sigh, but Jin complies. He turns around and lifts his hands to shoulder height again, walking tamely back to Kame’s side.

“Control freak,” he grumbles, giving the gun a disdainful look.

“Shut up,” Kame says, grabbing him firmly by the arm and leading him in the other direction, towards the city. If Jin is here, somebody sent him. Kame can’t let him disappear without knowing who, much less with the damn flash drive in his pocket. “I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

“How romantic,” Jin intones. Kame ignores him. He slips the gun into his coat pocket in case any cars should come by, but he keeps a hand on it to discourage Jin from trying to disappear again. Jin lowers his hands to his sides, but he doesn’t fight Kame’s grip at his elbow or make any attempts to escape.

Every once in a while he can feel Jin giving him the side eye, like he’s looking for a way in, to start a conversation. But Kame won’t engage.

What is there to say that wasn’t worth saying two years ago?

They walk in silence for about half a mile before things start to look like civilization again, the lights of Hong Kong winking at them across the ridge. Eventually Kame manages to flag down a passing cab and bribe the driver to accept their fare. He keeps the gun in his pocket and a hand on Jin’s elbow the whole way.

Within thirty minutes they’re pulling up in front of Kame’s hotel. Jin gives him a sidelong glance, but makes no protests when Kame escorts him from the car and leads him through the elegant lobby into the elevator bay.

There’s a couple in eveningwear in the elevator with them—a young woman and an older man, her hand resting lightly in the crook of his elbow. Kame releases Jin’s elbow for the moment, but lets it linger in the small of Jin’s back, out of sight. A subtle reminder.

The couple stays on the elevator when they get off, and Kame leads Jin all the way down to the end of the corridor, their feet silent on the carpet.

As soon as they’re inside the room, Kame tightens his grip on Jin’s arm and the back of Jin’s jacket and slams him up against the door, face first, one hand fisted between his shoulder blades and the barrel of the gun against the back of his skull.

“You ready to tell me what the fuck you’re doing here yet?”

Jin pants slightly, wincing at the pressure, but he doesn’t make any moves to fight back. “I told you,” he mumbles against the door. “I’m here for the same reason you are.”

“Bullshit,” Kame spits.

“You can keep saying that, but it won’t change the answer.”

“Hands,” Kame orders, jerking the fist at Jin’s collar. “Behind your back.”

Jin acquiesces, bends his arms and crosses his wrists in the small of his back. Kame leans away slightly to avoid allowing Jin’s fingers to brush against his stomach, and watches Jin’s hands settle. Keeping his eyes on Jin’s back, on everywhere he might make a move, Kame sets the gun on top of the dresser and reaches for the drawer. There’s a pair of handcuffs tucked between his undershirts, and he pulls them out. Clasps them over one wrist, then the other.

There’s a little shudder in Jin’s breath. Just for a moment.

Kame feels it too—needs a breath to get past it, the way it echoes. Muscle memory.

But that was before.

This is now.

When the handcuffs are secure, he grabs the gun off the dresser and backs off again, keeping it pointed at Jin. “Turn around,” he says. “Slowly.”

Jin does. His eyes stay on the gun as he twists around, presses himself back up against the door. “You’re more paranoid than I remember,” he comments, gesturing his chin toward the gun.

“A lot’s happened since then,” Kame says.

Jin tilts his head slightly in acknowledgement. But then he pulls at the cuffs, metal rubbing against the wood. “Still. Can you point that thing somewhere else? I think you’ve got me.”

Kame considers this for a moment. It’s true that Jin doesn’t seem to be trying to escape anymore. And even if he were, he was never much good at picking locks.

Kame lowers the gun to his side. Keeps it handy though.

“How did you know I would be here?”

“I didn’t,” Jin says. “I wasn’t looking for you.”

“Stop lying to me,” Kame warns.

“It’s the truth. If I’d known you would be here I would have made sure we met somewhere else.”

Kame narrows eyes at him. “Like where?”

“Here is good,” Jin says, lips twitching slightly.

Fucking bastard.

“Don’t,” Kame snaps. “You don’t get to do that with me anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Because. You lost that privilege when you fucked me over.”

“I didn’t fuck anybody over,” Jin insists.

“Didn’t you? Then what would you call it.”

Jin’s eyes flicker, choosing words. Choosing lies. “I had something I needed to do, and I did it. I’m sorry I couldn’t bring you with me.”

Kame takes two steps closer and grabs Jin by the hair, pulls his head back sharply against the door. “ _Don’t_. You don’t talk to me about that. _Ever_.”

Jin looks down at him, eyes dark, breath quaking slightly. Swallows. To anyone else it would look like fear. Kame knows better.

He puts the gun on the dresser again. Keeps the hand in Jin’s hair, and reaches for the breast pocket of Jin’s jacket. Slips his fingers inside.

Nothing. Nothing in the lining of the pocket either, or the corners.

He tries the collar of the jacket next, feels underneath the starched panels. Jin’s breath quickens when Kame’s fingers slide underneath the jacket collar, over his collarbones, but he holds very still. Presses his lips together. Kame ignores him, moving on to the seams around Jin’s shoulders, the jacket pockets at his hips.

Jin twitches when Kame’s hands slide inside the jacket pockets, feel around near his belt.

Nothing in there either.

He brings his hands up to the lapels again and pushes the jacket off Jin’s shoulders, down his trapped arms. Feels Jin’s breath stutter against his cheek, but ignores it. 

This is just business.

Then he slips his hands around Jin’s sides to feel down the center of his back, under his arms again, all along the seams. It brings them too close, too warm underneath his fingers, against Kame’s chest—but Kame focuses on the seams, tracing the line of Jin’s spine and finding no foreign objects, nothing hidden there. Then he pulls back again and reaches for the shirt collar. Jin twitches and swallows when he yanks it open a few buttons and checks around the inside, where the collar meets his shoulders.

Nothing there.

It’s the belt next—he doesn’t have to undo it, just pull the shirt out from underneath it and run his fingers along the inside edge. There’s a sharp intake of breath when Kame’s fingers skim against Jin’s stomach, pull at the belt buckle to see if anything is hidden underneath—but Kame refuses to look up at him. Doesn’t want to see his face. He keeps his body from touching Jin’s as he slides his hands into the back pants pockets and checks all the corners, then follows the belt around to the front and searches the front pockets.

He knows it’s there. Even if the bulge in the front of Jin’s pants weren’t obvious, there’s no way he’d miss the signs. Jin was never good at hiding that.

It could be accidental when the fingertips of his right hand brush against it from inside the pocket—he’s not sure. But it twitches against them, and there’s another sharp intake of breath.

Then the fingers of his left hand close around the flash drive, and he pulls both hands back out. 

He looks up at Jin as he pockets the drive. Jin’s eyes are dark, but impassive. He doesn’t open his mouth. Doesn’t seem to breathe.

Next, Kame gets all the way down on the floor and feels around Jin’s ankles, inside his shoes. He skims fingers down along the outer seam of Jin’s black slacks, over muscle and bone, and then back up along the inseam. Jin holds very still as Kame’s hands approach the center, but there’s a quickly stifled groan when Kame palms his erection. On purpose this time, but efficient—no room for politeness here. Kame feels around it, feels the twitch of Jin’s hips as they press involuntarily into his grip—but Kame won’t care, won’t take, won’t give him anything, won’t make this about more than it is. Just business.

His hand falls away.

There are no blades. No guns, no picks, no weapons or tools of any kind, nothing but the flash drive. That seems… unusual.

Slowly he gets to his feet again. He feels a bit lightheaded, a bit unsteady, but he tries not to show it. He should step away now, he’s got what he needed. Jin doesn’t have anything on him, he won’t be able to free himself. He should step away.

Jin’s breath is shallow, his eyes on Kame every minute, and he’s not even pretending he wants distance, wants space. He wants touch, wants Kame’s hand again, wants close.

It could be a trap. Kame knows that. He’s fallen before.

Kame’s hand finds its way into Jin’s hair again, and Jin’s lips part, just slightly. A little breath.

It’s too easy. Jin makes it too easy. 

Just a little twist of his wrist, a gentle tug, and Jin’s knees are collapsing underneath him. He’s sliding down to the floor, a heavy weight pressed between Kame’s shin and the door. His eyes close for a moment, his head tilted back, and then they open. Look up at him, dark and steady.

There’s a little twitch of Jin’s hips, pushing up against Kame’s leg, just slightly. Kame tightens his fist in Jin’s hair again, and Jin’s mouth falls open with a soundless sigh, another little twitch.

Fuck.

He can’t be blamed for it. Jin is… Jin. 

Kame goes for his belt with his free hand, still keeping a firm grip in Jin’s hair. He can see Jin’s breath quicken when he reaches in, pulls himself out, already mostly hard. Jin’s mouth lets him in deep, closes around him immediately. Starts to suck.

It takes a few thrusts for Kame to find his balance, braced against the door, Jin hard against his ankle and tight around his cock. It’s too deep once or twice, he can feel Jin flinch and gag, but he doesn’t protest—just keeps it tight, his hips twitching against Kame’s leg. Kame can see his arm muscles working underneath the rumpled white shirt, twisting and pulling against the restraints—but he’s held fast, nothing to do but suck, breath coming hard through his nose, tongue sliding clumsily underneath.

Kame can’t remember the last time he was this hard. The last time it felt this good. Jin moans around him, struggling for breath, straining to stay on top of it. Kame strokes the base a couple of times, where Jin can’t reach, and then pushes deep again. No flinch this time, Jin is ready for him. Another hum in Jin’s throat, and Jin’s mouth, Jin’s fucking mouth…god…he’s so…

Another tight thrust and then it washes over him, through him—pulsing, knees weak. He feels the swallow, Jin breathing around it—Jin’s mouth hot, stretched and taking it, swallowing it all. Jin’s hair clutched between his fingers, couldn’t escape now if he wanted to. No choice. Serves him right.

When Kame pulls back, Jin lets him slip out. Kame looks down at him and watches him lick his lips, panting, eyes closed tight. His dick is still straining inside his pants, his hips still pressed against Kame’s ankle as he tries to catch his breath.

Kame inches his foot back back, and Jin gives a sob. Pushes his hips out farther, but Kame’s still got him pinned by his hair. He can’t reach.

“Please,” Jin gasps, arms twisting against the cuffs again. Kame thinks about letting him have one of his hands back, letting him jerk himself off at Kame’s feet.

Thinks about leaving him here to wallow, soaked in sweat and hard all night, begging to come.

But he decides to take pity.

He gets down on his knees in front of Jin, keeping Jin’s shoulders pinned back against the door. He undoes the belt buckle, slowly, and then the button, and the zip. Jin moans when he reaches delicately inside Jin’s underwear and pulls him free. Just with his fingertips. Not enough.

He strokes a knuckle lightly along the underside of Jin’s rigid cock, and Jin slams his head back against the door. “Oh fuck, please…”

“Please what?” Kame says. He runs a fingertip over the head, through the trail of moisture there.

“Please let me come,” Jin gasps.

Kame toys with his head a little bit more—and then he wraps his hand firmly around the end of Jin’s dick, his other hand finding its grip in Jin’s hair again. “Okay,” Kame says. “Come then.”

Immediately Jin’s muscles start working, hips pushing up and into Kame’s grip, breath harsh and strained, little moans seeping out. “Tighter,” Jin says, and Kame complies, but still doesn’t join in the rhythm. Lets Jin fucking work for it.

Faster and harder, and Kame can tell Jin’s strength is giving out when he falls off the rhythm—but he still doesn’t give in.

Finally there’s a strangled cry, and Jin’s body goes rigid with it, pulsing, white and sticky over Kame’s fingers, on the floor, on Kame’s dark slacks. He flicks his wrist once, twice to keep it going, make Jin shiver again, until he finally groans and slumps, boneless against the door.

Kame lets go of Jin’s shrinking dick and reaches for the collar of Jin’s shirt. Jin twitches when he tugs it open further, wipes the come off his hand.

Jin’s eyes are closed, his breathing labored, but there’s a little fragment of a smile tugging on his lips. He lifts his chin again, takes a deeper breath, and meets Kame’s eyes. He’s closer than Kame realized.

“I’ve missed you,” Jin says. His voice is low and intimate, and Kame feels it deep in his gut, echoing through years and other bedrooms.

He swallows. The pull is almost magnetic, but he won’t fall. Not again.

Kame gets to his feet and tucks his dick back into his pants. Peels out of his shirt, which is covered in sweat and other things, and drops it on the floor. He digs through the dresser drawer and finds the keys to the handcuffs, kneels down next to Jin again and tugs his arms to the side so he can reach his wrists.

He tries not to touch him too much, avoids his gaze.

“You trust me now?” Jin says, eyebrows arching.

“If you fuck me over again, I’ll kill you in your sleep,” Kame says. “The bathroom is that way.” He nods toward the door opposite, and then turns back to the dresser to start looking for a fresh pair of pants.

“Thanks,” Jin says, working the stiffness out of his shoulders.

When Kame doesn’t answer, he pushes himself to his feet and makes his way into the bathroom. The door closes behind him. After a moment, Kame hears the shower turn on.

Alone in the bedroom, Kame sits down on the edge of the bed and digs both hands into his hair, scrubbing at his scalp and squeezing his eyes shut. Listens to the water hitting the tile in the bathroom, and Jin’s feet against the floor.

This is going to complicate everything.

But, okay. It’s okay, he can deal with this. He can keep it professional, get what he needs from Jin and complete the mission. If he’s being honest with himself, he knows he would never have had time to break into the computer before he was interrupted if Jin hadn’t shown up—and that would have meant a much riskier secondary operation. Jin might not be his partner anymore, but he can still be useful if Kame can just keep him under control.

Keep both of them under control.

He can do this.

He pulls his secure cell phone from the top drawer of the nightstand and dials the check-in number from memory. As he enters his security codes in sequence, he pulls the digital camera out of his pocket and starts flicking through what he’s got.

“You’re late,” Ueda answers, before Kame’s said a word.

“I ran into some trouble,” Kame says. “Took longer than expected.”

“Yeah, we thought you might. Nakamaru wanted to give you a heads up, but we were afraid of blowing your cover.”

The jolt hits him harder than expected, questions racing through his mind. “You knew about this?”

“Yeah. I mean, we don’t have a lot of detail, but we got word earlier this evening that there’s someone else on the trail.”

“Do you know who he’s working for?”

“Nope,” Ueda says. “We’re still following up on a few things, but so far all the leads have come up empty.” There’s typing in the background, but then it stops. “Wait. ‘He’? Did you actually run into this guy? Can you tell us anything about him?”

Kame stops. So… they didn’t know then. In a way it’s a relief, but…

He glances over at the closed bathroom door.

It’s not his job to protect Jin—not anymore. If he tells them, Jin will be out of his hair in hours, maybe sooner. What they do with him is not Kame’s problem. Whatever he knows, they’ll get it out of him.

There’s sound from the bathroom, the gentle rhythm of water hitting the glass door, shifting as Jin moves under the stream.

“No,” Kame says. “I mean, I saw that it was a man, but I didn’t get a good look at him.”

“Hmm,” Ueda murmurs. “Well, that’s something, I guess. Anything else?”

Kame turns his eyes away from the bathroom door. Tries to put unnecessary thoughts out of his head.

“Yes,” he says. “Yeah, I need you to look up a phone number for me…”

 

~ $ ~ $ ~ $ ~

 

By the time Jin gets out of the shower, Kame is off the phone again. He’s got his laptop spread out on the bed with the flash drive stuck in the side, and he’s sifting through file after file with an analyzer, trying to see if any data fragments were actually successfully decrypted. So far, there’s nothing.

“Anything interesting?” Jin says, rubbing at his hair with a small hand towel. The larger towel is wrapped low around his hips. Kame glances up at him briefly.

“Not much,” he says.

Jin drops onto the couch and tucks his hands behind his head. The ends of the towel gap over his left knee, the corner sliding down between his legs. “Yeah, that’s what it looked like to me too. One thing is for sure though, he was definitely trying to crack his way in. I recovered like two-hundred bad attempts. Pretty sure they were all the same thing.”

“That’s what I’m seeing here,” Kame says, nodding. “Identical file sizes, same first and last digits in the encrypted form. Just nothing that makes any kind of sense.”

“That means he doesn’t have it then.” Jin sounds thoughtful. A bit relieved.

Kame glances up at him again to find Jin staring up at the ceiling. “What exactly do you know about all this?” he asks.

Jin glances over at him again and smiles a bit. Seems more cooperative, now that Kame isn’t pointing a gun in his face.

“I know that that file,” he motions toward the computer with his chin, “contains a chemical formula strong enough to get the attention of biological weapons manufacturers all over the world. I know that without the encryption key, that file is basically worthless. And I know that Tsai has been trying to shop the file around, but no one is buying because he doesn’t have the key.”

Kame watches him across the room. He’s not sure if he would recognize a lie from Jin anymore, but so far it’s all true. No way of knowing if it’s the whole truth though.

“A better question,” Jin says, ruffling his wet hair between his hands and leaning forward on his elbows, “is what exactly do you know about all this?”

“Who are you working for?” Kame asks again.

Jin shakes his head slowly. “I told you, I’m not working for anyone. This one is strictly pro-bono.”

Kame frowns. “Why? What do you care?”

“I still live in the world, Kame,” Jin says, sounding a little bit affronted. “That thing is dangerous. I don’t want it to fall into the wrong hands if there’s anything I can do to stop it.”

“But how the hell did you even find out about this?”

“I still have my connections,” he says, with a little shrug. “I didn’t cut ties with everybody when I left.”

“Just with me,” Kame says blandly.

Jin looks at him again. He looks a bit like he wishes he could take that back. But why bother, when it’s true.

Whatever. Jin’s reasons are his reasons, and if there’s someone somewhere out there still willing to talk to him after what he did, then good for him. They can have him.

Kame turns back to the computer, flicking open another file. The same rows of numbers, the same mangled characters, the same signs of tampering.

“The key is on its way,” he says, not looking up at Jin again. “The encryption key can’t be copied intact, so it has to be transported by hand. The hard drive was stolen from the lab last week, and we know Tsai’s operative made it out of Japan, but we lost track of him somewhere in Singapore. He’s clearly taking the scenic route, trying to put everyone off the scent, but eventually he’s going to have to turn up here to make the drop.”

“Do you know when?”

“I have an idea,” Kame says. He gets out the digital camera again, flicks past the passport photos to the last one he took. It’s green tinged from the night setting, but the words are clear.

He slides off the bed and walks over to Jin, holds the camera down in front of his face. “I found this written in the back of a notebook inside the safe. I’ve got someone checking into the phone number. If the numbers up front refer to a date, that would be two days from now.”

“6734,” Jin reads, frowning at the handwriting.

“I’m not sure about that part yet,” Kame says. “Still looking into it.”

Jin takes the camera and leans back against the back of the couch—starts flicking a finger over the screen, flipping through the passport pictures. “Do we know what these are for?”

Kame sits down on the arm of the sofa, looking over his shoulder. “They’re all Tsai’s, as far as I can tell, though the pictures are pretty nondescript. We were already aware of some of the names, but a few of them are new.”

“Did you send these to the guys too?”

Kame shakes his head. “Not yet. Do you think I should have?”

“It might help. If they can cross-reference any of them with the number, I mean. Then again, sending the pictures could be risky. We could show them around and do some groundwork first.”

“That was my thought, too.”

Jin looks up at him, a little bit of a smile pulling at his lips. Kame realizes he’s leaned in further than he meant to again. Straightens up.

He really fucking hates it, that snap back to reality. Stings every time.

“We should get some sleep,” he says, getting to his feet again. For a moment he’s not sure where he’s going, just knows he doesn’t want to see that quiet little smirk on Jin’s face again. Like he’s got something on him, sees something Kame doesn’t want to show. It gets under his skin. Too close.

The bathroom. He goes into the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth. Even in here the light is too bright, and he doesn’t really want to look in the mirror. Doesn’t want to know what he would find there.

By the time he gets back out to the bedroom, Jin has turned down the lights and rooted through Kame’s drawers to snag a fresh pair of shorts. He notices Kame looking and gives him an easy look in return. “I’m cool sleeping naked if you prefer,” he says.

Kame gets a quick flashback or two, sleeping naked with Jin. Waking up naked with Jin.

He swallows.

“No,” he says stiffly. “Help yourself.”

As Jin crawls under the covers, Kame strips down to his boxers as well and makes his way to the other side of the bed. Cool and efficient. He could make Jin sleep on the floor, or the couch, he supposes—but he doesn’t. It doesn’t matter.

Kame turns off the light. Nobody says goodnight.

 

~ $ ~ $ ~ $ ~

 

There’s a bird singing somewhere, right next to Kame’s ear. He waves a hand at it, tries to shoo it away and turn his face deeper into the pillow—but then there’s a soft clunk that wakes him up the rest of the way, and he realizes it’s not a bird. It’s a phone.

He leans over the edge of the bed and picks his cellphone up off the floor. The call claims to be coming from an unknown number, but Kame knows who it is. There aren’t many people it could be.

“Did you find it?” he says, by way of a greeting. He’s still blinking the scratchiness out of his eyes, pushing himself up to sit.

“Unfortunately not,” Nakamaru’s voice answers. “The phone number is a dead end. It seems to have been a throwaway—not currently in service, and we haven’t been able to find any information on who might have once owned it.”

“Damn,” Kame sighs. There’s a soft snuffle beside him, a rustle as Jin shifts over onto his stomach and pulls the duvet up to his cheek. Kame puts a hand over the mouthpiece until it stops.

“We think you’re right about the first few numbers being a date, but we haven’t had much luck with the second set of numbers,” Nakamaru continues. “We thought it might be a flight number or something, but we haven’t been able to match it up with any known flights, trains, or ships scheduled to arrive in or depart from Hong Kong on that date. We’ll try widening the search just in case the date assumption is faulty or this is some intermediate leg of the trip, but we might just be barking up the wrong tree.”

“Hmm,” Kame mumbles. “Yeah, okay—keep trying. Let me know if you find anything.”

“Will do.”

Kame hangs up the phone and puts it back on top of the nightstand. He glances over at Jin again, a long, tangled lump stretched out beside him, one leg drifting across the center line and into Kame’s space. It stirs something deep inside him, reminds him of yesterday and their little…slip.

It’s getting harder to remember that Jin can’t be trusted, especially when he sleeps so peacefully. Maybe it’s Kame’s memory playing tricks on him, but even back then he doesn’t remember Jin looking so vulnerable and unsuspecting in sleep. So… ordinary.

Where the fuck has he been all this time?

They wouldn’t tell him much. Just that Jin was gone and it was in everyone’s best interests to forget that he had ever existed. His files were deleted from the database, all the codes reissued, everything wiped clean. It was only through a few outside contacts and the company grapevine that Kame had pieced together that Jin had left the country, apparently to work for some foreign interest with deeper pockets than the agency’s. But the trail ended at the border. He’d never been able to pin down who these foreign interests were, or what they’d offered him—what they could possibly have offered Jin to make him betray everyone he knew.

After a year or so, he’d stopped looking. Even if he’d been able to find out, it wouldn’t have told him what he really wanted to know.

The duvet stirs again, dipping and rising as Jin twists underneath it. Kame looks away just as Jin’s arms emerge and push it away from his face.

“Good morning,” Jin says. Kame can hear the smile, but he refuses to acknowledge it.

“No luck with the phone number,” Kame says instead. His fingers are itching for a cigarette. He’s cut way back this past year, doesn’t even carry them anymore, but his body seems to have forgotten that. “They’re still working on the other stuff.”

There’s a little sigh into the duvet, a tilting and shuddering of the mattress as Jin pushes himself up to sit against the headboard. Kame keeps his eyes front, doesn’t watch Jin push the hair out of his sleepy eyes or stretch against the pillows.

“We can shop that around too, see if anybody knows anything.”

Kame nods. “Yeah, we’re going to have to.”

There’s a moment of silence. Kame can feel Jin’s eyes on him. He can feel them, but he can’t turn around. He won’t turn around.

“I can lie low here if you want,” Jin says. “If that would be easier.”

It probably would. No awkward questions he doesn’t know the answers too, and probably couldn’t answer if he did. He really shouldn’t be dealing with Jin at all, much less making the rounds with him, granting him legitimacy. The people they’ll be talking to don’t have direct ties to the agency, but who knows who else they might be dealing with.

“It’s fine,” he says. “I need a shower. Get dressed.”

 

~ $ ~ $ ~ $ ~

 

They stop off at Jin’s hotel on the way—a narrow, cramped little business hotel near the train station. Kame can smell the sex on Jin’s suit as they get out of Kame’s rental car and step onto the sidewalk. Fortunately there’s nobody else around to notice, and the hotel lobby is dim, empty. There’s only a cramped elevator ride and a narrow hallway before they find themselves in Jin’s room.

The room is tiny, but functional. There’s a small desk with a backpack and a few stray clothes draped over it, a toothbrush perched on the corner. Jin digs through the backpack and pulls out a fresh pair of jeans and a t-shirt. “Just a sec,” he murmurs, and slips into the bathroom to wash up.

The bed looks slept in—the do-not-disturb sign was on the door, so clearly Jin didn’t want anyone in here. Knowing Jin, that could be sheer laziness—it doesn’t look like there’s anything particularly worthy of hiding in here. Kame moves over to the desk and starts searching the backpack—clothes, a small laptop, a few toiletries, a slightly squashed snack bar. He checks the lining, anything padded or thicker, but there’s no sign of any concealed weapons or equipment.

Weird. Not only did he not bring any hardware to the party—he doesn’t seem to have anything on him at all.

He pushes the bag aside and starts searching through the pile of things strewn across the desk. Checks all the drawers, the insides of the lampshades, under the bed. Other than the fact that the housekeeping service needs to be a bit more thorough, he doesn’t find anything of interest. Jin might as well be some random backpacker on a gap year trip.

When he hears the knob on the bathroom door turning, Kame moves back toward the entrance. He tries to stay out of the way as Jin moves over to the desk again and starts pulling his things together.

“Find anything interesting?” Jin asks, folding and stuffing a t-shirt into a deep corner of the backpack.

Kame shifts slightly, caught. “Nothing in particular,” he replies. No point in pretending.

Jin glances over at him, an amused little smile tugging at his lips. “You believe me yet?”

Kame gives him a sharp look. Ignores the question. “Have you finished packing up? We need to get going.”

Jin checks himself out of the hotel on the way out, backpack slung over one shoulder. Once they get back to the car, he tosses the backpack into the trunk. Kame starts the car as soon as Jin sinks into the passenger seat, pulling out into traffic while Jin is still fumbling with the seatbelt.

“So, where are we headed first?” Jin asks.

“Red light district,” Kame says.

“Cool,” Jin murmurs.

There’s an expectant pause.

“Want to tell me where in particular?”

Kame keeps his eyes on the road. Doesn’t answer.

There’s a tilty little nod in the corner of his vision. Jin’s eyes flick toward the window as they come to a stoplight.

They carry on in silence for a couple of blocks, the engine rumbling underneath them as Kame shifts gears, signals a turn away from the main road.

There’s a little twitch in Jin’s fingers where they rest on the center console, and Kame knows that gesture. Knows this silence. There’s something in there, in Jin’s fingertips, in his chest, burning to get out.

They pull up to another set of stoplights.

“Okay, so, I know you think I’m the devil incarnate and all, but are you planning on lightening the fuck up any time soon?” Jin grumbles.

Kame shoots a glance over at him. Jin looks annoyed. “Excuse me?”

“I let you handcuff me, kick the shit out of me, search my suit, search my room, and come in my mouth—exactly what else do I need to do to convince you that I am not a threat to you?”

Jin’s irritation and the reminder send a prickle down Kame’s spine. It helps when he glances over and can see the slightest flush running down the side of Jin’s throat. Only a little though.

Kame doesn’t know what to say.

He knows. He knows that Jin is doing all the right things, that there is absolutely nothing here to suggest that he’s anything other than what he seems to be. But that’s just it.

He did all the right things before. Back then. Kame knew Jin better than anyone else in the world, trusted him with his life—and it all turned out to be a lie.

“I don’t know how I can trust you anymore,” Kame says.

“Then why the fuck am I here?”

“Because I can’t leave you alone!” Kame snaps.

Jin goes quiet. Kame can feel Jin’s eyes on him, heavy and searching.

“Is that really all it is?” he asks.

Kame swallows. Jin’s voice is quiet, and he hasn’t moved, hasn’t gotten any closer, but somehow Kame still feels it like a whisper on the back of his neck.

Kame doesn’t answer.

Eventually, Jin breathes a small sigh. “Look, you don’t have to trust me,” he says, just as quietly. “I get why that’s not… I get it, okay. But, I’m here. We both want the same thing, and you know we’ve got a better shot at getting it if we work together. So just… work with me on this. Let me help.”

Kame glances over at him again.

Jin is right—he knows that. Trust is not an expectation in this business—Kame works with people he doesn’t trust every day, that’s part of the job. You can’t find out where the bodies are buried if you’re only willing to talk to Sunday school teachers. You get what you need from someone and you watch your back, and then you get on with your day. That’s how it goes.

But this… this is different. Jin used to be the one to watch Kame’s back. Kame doesn’t know how to deal with him like he’s just any other contact, how to let him close enough without letting him too close.

Jin was always too close.

“I’ll try,” he says.

The streets get narrower as they make their way into the rougher part of town. The corners get stranger, better suited to foot traffic than car traffic. Once they’re as close as they’re going to get, Kame finds a space to park and turns off the car.

It’s been a while since he’s been to this area in person, and some of the shops have changed hands in the meantime, but the layout is still familiar. They take a left off of the main street and into a slanted side street full of antique shops and adult video stores, down a little further before they take another right. Halfway down the block, they follow an unobtrusive set of concrete stairs at the foot of a nondescript concrete apartment building down to the shop in the basement. Shitty location if you’re looking for foot traffic, but pretty much ideal if you’re not.

The shop itself is dark, almost dark enough you would think it was closed if it weren’t for the sign on the door. The shelves are covered in old junk, space heaters and kettles and cameras along one wall, jewelry and pottery along another. Off to the right is a short wooden counter with an ancient computer sitting at one end and a tiny dog wrestling with a milkbone at the other.

Jin’s eyes light up when he sees the dog, and he skirts around Kame to go say hello. As soon as the dog is distracted from his milkbone, her little tail starts wagging furiously, feet twitching anxiously on the wooden counter. When Jin reaches out to pat her between the ears, he’s attacked by a flurry of yips and licks, all up and down his forearm.

“Sakura, what the hell—”

Koki ducks under the curtain in the doorway from the back room and stops. His look sours slightly at the sight of Jin playing with the dog.

“Ah, shit…”

Jin gives him a bland look. “Nice to see you too.”

Koki steps over to the counter and scoops the restless dog up into his arms. He gathers up the crumbled remains of the milkbone in his free hand and feeds them to her to win back her attention. The crumbles crunch, crunch, crunch between her teeth, her little paws still twitching in midair with each tail wag.

Koki’s eyes shift from Jin to Kame and back again, but he doesn’t voice the question aloud. Good thing, because Kame doesn’t want to answer it.

“We need your help with something,” Kame says, taking a step forward and pulling the digital camera from his pocket. Koki still throws Jin another curious glance, but then steps closer to Kame’s shoulder to look at what Kame is showing him. “We’re trying to figure out what these numbers mean. Does any of it ring a bell at first glance?”

Koki peers down at the image, fingertips twitching on the dog’s head. After a moment, he shakes his head. “Not really. Can you give me any more detail?”

Kame nods. “We’re pretty sure the phone number is disconnected, and we think that first part is a date, but the middle part we’re not sure about. We’re hoping it will lead us to a certain delivery that’s expected to arrive in town within the next week or so.”

Koki lifts his chin in a slow nod, like he’s finally caught on. “Riiight—I was wondering when one of you guys would start sticking your fingers in that one.”

“You know about the key?” Jin says.

Kame gives him a look that says, _Shut up_.

Jin lifts his shoulders. _What? He already knew_.

“Of course I know about the key,” Koki says, glancing from one to the other of them like they’re idiots. “Everybody knows about the fucking key. You guys are getting slow.”

Jin opens his mouth to speak again, but Kame cuts him off. “It’s important that we intercept it at all costs. Do you have any idea when it’s supposed to arrive?”

Koki shakes his head. “Sorry, man. They’re playing that one pretty close to the vest, I haven’t come across any of the specifics. That number in the middle there, though,” he points to the four digits on the screen, “have you checked that against the travel logs?”

Kame nods. “We weren’t able to find a match. Not for this date and location, anyway. Maybe it’s an intermediate leg of the trip or something.”

Koki shakes his head and turns away to place the dog in the little dog bed in the corner behind him. “No, not the public logs—the black market logs,” he says. He steps over to the computer and types a few keys to wake it up, logs into the software. “With all the new regs and things these days, the ships that run contraband into port have started keeping a separate set of logs with rotating vessel numbers, so they can keep track of what’s where without showing up on anyone’s radar. I can’t give you the codes to translate everything, obviously, but if I’m right…”

“You can tell us the real ship number?” Jin says.

Koki gives him an annoyed look. “If I’m right, yeah.”

Kame glares at Jin. _Shh._

Jin’s eyes widen slightly in response. _What? It was just a question._

__Kame turns his attention back to Koki, who is currently tapping away at the computer. A few more codes entered and a few more pages clicked through, until finally Koki’s eyes light up.

“Ha! Got it—it’s right here, just a sec.” Koki fumbles in the snoopy mug to his left for a pen with a skeleton dangling from the end, and grabs a small slip of paper from the stack to his right. He scribbles down the number from the screen and hands it to Kame.

_1328, dock 23, 3:25pm_

“This is it?” Kame says, taking the paper from him. “The real thing?”

Koki nods. “Should be. That’s one of the larger container ships, does the round trip between here and Mumbai. They sometimes take on passengers, and they don’t tend to ask a lot of questions. Strictly a cash business. I don’t have any specific information on this dude or anything, but if I were dealing in dark shit like this, that’s how I’d do it.”

“Takes one to know one,” Jin mutters.

“You want to get into it, Akanishi?” Koki mutters back. “Cause I’d be more than happy to wipe the floor with you.”

Kame takes a subtle step in front of Jin, placing himself between them. More reasons he should have left Jin at the fucking hotel. “Thank you so much,” he says to Koki, ignoring Jin’s irritated attempts to inch around him. “This is a huge help, we really appreciate it. If you hear anything more on this, you know how to get in touch, right?”

“Sure do,” Koki says, with a smile. He shoots Jin a quick evil look over Kame’s shoulder—and because Jin is an idiot, it works. “Take care.”

“Thanks,” Kame says with a smile. And then he grabs Jin firmly by the arm and leads him out the door, and back up the concrete steps.

“That guy is such a dick,” Jin grumbles, jerking his elbow out of Kame’s grip. “I don’t know why you put up with him.”

“I put up with you,” Kame points out.

“Fuck off.”

“And he gives me what I need.”

Jin stops right in front of Kame on the sidewalk and glares at him. “Fuck. Off.”

Kame tilts his head and gives Jin a mild smile. “You wanted me to lighten the fuck up,” he says. And then he steps around Jin and continues walking toward the car. “Hurry up. We’ve still got shit to do.”

 

~ $ ~ $ ~ $ ~

 

“Aww, maaaaan,” Jin whines when he realizes where they are.

Kame shifts the car into reverse and twists around to look back over the passenger’s seat, steering carefully to avoid the silver Mercedes that’s parked a little too close.

“He knows people,” Kame says, still not taking his eyes off the Mercedes, the curb, the lamppost.

“He’s a creepy son of a bitch.”

“Yeah,” Kame concedes. “And he knows people.”

Jin looks prepared to argue the point further when Kame finally turns off the car, but Kame doesn’t give him the opportunity. “You can stay in the car if you want. I’ll be back in five minutes.”

Jin shoots him a heavy glare. Kame can practically see the battle waging between his desire not to go inside, and his stubborn compulsion to prove he can cope with anything Kame can cope with.

He gets out of the car. Grumbling to himself about stupid, useless, pointless, some such.

“We already know when the ship is arriving,” Jin argues as he follows Kame up the metal outer stairwell. “Why do we even need this guy?”

“Because we don’t know who the fuck we’re looking for, Jin. What do you want to do, hold the entire crew hostage and strip search them?”

When they get to the second floor, Kame comes to a stop beside a large, blacked-out window and bangs the side of his fist against the frame, two times. Nothing happens for a moment or two. Eventually there’s a little creak, and the window is pulled open haltingly, high enough for a guy in a black leather jacket to stick his head out over the sill.

“Something I can help you with?” the guy says, in accented Chinese.

“Iriguchi deguchi Taguchi desu,“ Kame says.

The guy doesn’t blink. Just looks him up and down, like he’s checking for hidden weapons. Sweeps his eyes over Jin as well.

“Step inside,” the guy says, in Japanese this time, jerking his head toward the dark interior. “I’ll see if he’s in.”

The guy opens the window a little bit further by way of invitation, and then moves away into the dark. Kame crouches down and steps in through the window, putting a hand on the lower frame to steady himself. The floor inside is a bit lower than the landing outside, a little farther to fall. Once Jin is inside as well, Kame slides the window closed.

The blackout film on the window doesn’t completely prevent light from entering from the outside—which is fortunate, because that’s pretty much the only light they’ve got in here. The room is nearly empty, apart from a dusty old receptionist’s desk in the corner and a wooden filing cabinet that looks like it had all the latches broken off half a century ago. If it weren’t for the trail of dusty footprints between the window and the internal door, this would seem to be an abandoned building.

There’s a creak of floorboard somewhere behind them. Kame feels Jin’s body nudge up against his arm, just a little bit. He gives Jin a knowing look, but he’s pretty sure Jin can’t see it in the dark. And anyway, Jin’s attention seems to be on scanning all the dark corners for unseen figures.

When there’s a sudden creak and burst of light, Jin actually swears under his breath and grabs the back of Kame’s shirt, like he’s about to pull him out of danger.

But it’s just the interior door opening again, and a silhouetted figure appearing in the doorway.

“Kazuya!” Taguchi says, in a far too enthusiastic voice. Kame can feel Jin bristle, but he ignores it and leads the way forward.

Taguchi takes Kame’s proffered hand and shakes it firmly. Then reaches for Jin’s too, and Jin reluctantly assents.

“I’m so glad you guys stopped by! It seems like it’s been ages. Didn’t you go overseas or something?” he asks Jin as he leads them into a cosy, well-lit billiard hall. “I feel like I remember hearing something about that. It was a big deal, right?”

He’s got one arm around Jin’s shoulders and the other around Kame’s. Jin looks slightly like he wants to murder him, but Taguchi doesn’t seem phased by the tight smile, or the noncommittal reply.

When they reach the billiard table at the back of the hall, where seven other guys in dark suits are standing at attention, Taguchi claps both of them on the back and releases them. “So,” he says as he strides around the end of the table and accepts a cue from the guy at the corner. “What can I do you for?”

He’s not even looking at them anymore, already surveying the table and lining up the next shot.

“We were hoping you could give us some information on someone. Nothing too sensitive,” Kame says. “We just want to know who we’re dealing with.”

There’s a clatter as Taguchi takes his shot, scatters several balls in different directions. Two of them roll into the far corner pockets. The cue ball spins toward the side, stopping just short of a scratch.

“What have you got on them?” Taguchi asks, glancing at Kame again as he rounds the corner to where the cue ball is, looking for another shot.

“The person we’re looking for is currently working for Tsai Wei,” Kame says. “Running a package for him. One of the aliases he was using was Yamada Ken, but we think it’s unlikely that’s his real name.”

Taguchi’s lips quirk upwards slightly as he lines up the next shot. There’s something a little bit too precise in his aim, a little too smooth in the smirk. Just for a moment.

Sometimes it’s too easy to forget that this guy can take someone out from 100 yards, if the price is right.

Another clatter, and three more balls slot themselves into place.

“Makino Daichi,” Taguchi says, straightening up and leaning languorously against his cue. “He’s a small-time yakuza grunt who got fed up, decided he wasn’t getting paid enough to knock teeth in. Now he’s a smuggler for hire, running the Shanghai circuit.”

“Do you know what he looks like?” Jin asks.

“I don’t keep a photo album,” Taguchi shrugs. He picks up his cue again and starts wandering around the table, glancing back and forth between the fifteen ball at one end and the eight ball at the other. “You’ll recognize him though. He’s got a pretty bad scar down the lefthand side of his neck. I guess he skimped a bit when he was trying to get his tattoos removed.”

He bends down and lines up the shot. The fifteen snaps straight into the pocket, and the cue ball ricochets in a sharp square before nudging the eight ball in as well.

“Also, he’s short,” Taguchi continues, straightening up. He gestures toward Kame with the cue. “Like about your height.”

Kame tries very hard not to kill him with his eyes. “Thanks,” he says tightly. “That’s very helpful.”

Taguchi grins brightly. “No worries!”

 

~ $ ~ $ ~ $ ~

 

“You know Tsai is going to be on that dock when the ship pulls into port,” Jin points out. He pulls another slice of pizza from the box laid out on the far nightstand, scooping up a stray tendril of cheese with his tongue.

Kame nods, swallows another bite. “We’re going to have to figure out how to get on board without letting him know we’re there. We should go down to the docks tomorrow morning and do some reconnaissance.”

“Sounds like a good idea. We’re also going to need to have a way to get off the damn thing. If Makino sends up a flare, it won’t take Tsai long to track us down.”

“Point,” Kame says. He leans back against the head of the bed. There’s a pack of cigarettes sitting on the nearer nightstand, and Kame reaches for them—holds them up and glances at Jin, silent request. Jin nods, still chewing. Kame opens the pack.

Normally the water would be an escape option—but if they’ve got the hard drive on them by then, that might not be a good idea. Kame’s orders are to bring it back intact, and a fifty-foot drop into the ocean would make that unlikely.

There’s no lighter on the nightstand. Kame checks his front pockets, but there’s nothing there but the room key.

“You got a light?” he asks.

Jin drops the last of the pizza slice in his mouth and rolls to his side, slipping fingers into the pocket of his jeans and pulling out a silver lighter. He tosses it up toward the head of the bed.

“Thanks,” Kame says, flicking it open and bringing it to his mouth. The nicotine tingles against his tongue—long time since he’s had one of these, especially this brand. 

He glances down at the lighter again, running a thumb over the long, curly letter J engraved in the surface. It’s scuffed, scraped against coins and keys in ten years’ worth of pockets. Kame remembers when it was new.

He closes the lighter again.

Tosses it back.

Jin picks it up and holds it between his fingertips, tapping it end over end against the bedspread and watching it slide. Then he glances up at Kame again, watching him take the cigarette from his lips and exhale.

“What?” Kame says. He’s feeling twitchy underneath Jin’s gaze, and the cigarette only helps a little. It’s hard to focus on the job when Jin is there, looking at him like that. It’s hard to focus on much of anything.

“Have you thought about what you’re going to do with it?” Jin asks quietly. Conversationally.

“Do with what?” Kame says, flicking a bit of ash into the ashtray on the nightstand.

“The key,” Jin says. “Once we get ahold of it.”

Kame frowns a bit. “I’ll turn it over to the agency. Why, what are your plans for it? World domination?”

Jin’s eyes just stay on him, dark and steady. “I think we should destroy it.”

Kame’s eyebrows arch. That was… not what he expected. “Are you crazy?”

“No,” Jin says.

“Jin, we can’t destroy it—it’s not ours. That’s not how this works.”

“That’s how it should work,” Jin says. “That thing is fucking dangerous—nobody should have it. Not the terrorists, not the government, and certainly not the agency.”

“We’re not in a position to decide that.”

“Yes, actually,” Jin says, sitting up and leaning a bit closer. “We are.”

Kame watches him steadily. “How do you figure that?”

“We’re the ones who risk our necks for this shit, and we’re the ones whose asses are on the line when somebody slips up.” He looks fierce, serious in a way that Jin rarely is. “Just because they tell you they know what they’re doing doesn’t mean they know fuck all—and if this thing gets into the wrong hands, maybe it won’t be you, and maybe it won’t be me, but somebody like us is going to pay the price for it. _That’s_ how this works.”

Jin is even closer now, too close, and Kame just stares at him for a moment. He’s seen Jin angry before, but he’s never seen him quite like this. Not just angry, but… bitter. _Burned_.

“What the hell happened to you?” he murmurs.

Jin huffs a breath. “Finally you ask.”

Kame doesn’t know what to say.

It takes him by surprise when Jin curls a hand around the back of Kame’s neck, pulls him into a firm kiss. Hard, slightly demanding, impatient. Kame’s not used to being manhandled by Jin, but he lets it slide, lets Jin take what he wants, parts his lips and lets Jin inside. He keeps his hands to his sides, doesn’t kiss back. Just waits for Jin to give up. Answer the question.

Eventually Jin stops and leans back, just far enough to catch his breath. Kame can feel it hot against his lips, and he has to resist leaning forward again.

“Don’t you get it? They took you away from me,” Jin says, shaking him slightly.

That’s it. That’s the straw. Kame leaves the cigarette butt in the ashtray and seizes Jin by the hair, kisses him fiercely, pushing, pulling, wrestling him over onto his back. Jin’s arm hits the footboard of the bed as Kame settles his hips between Jin’s thighs, grinds against him where he’s starting to get hard. Jin’s hands are in his hair again, but Kame pushes them away, pins them down above his head and kisses Jin into the mattress until he’s groaning from the weight.

“You _left_ ,” Kame growls. It scrapes his throat at the sides.

“I had to,” Jin says, and Kame can feel him where he’s getting harder. “It was me or you.”

“Fuck you,” Kame says, and he’s not even sure which way he means it.

“Yes,” Jin says, hips bucking, and maybe that’s the right way. That’s what he should do, it’s what Jin _needs_ …

There are no condoms in the nightstand, but Kame knows he’s got supplies in his briefcase—sometimes they come in handy. He kisses Jin hard again and worms a hand down between them to grope him, making him gasp and buck.

Kame leans back just far enough. “Take your pants off,” he says, low. An order. And then he lifts away and doesn’t look back, only hears Jin’s hard huff of frustration and the clink of a belt buckle.

Kame pulls his shirt off over his head and drops it on the couch next to the briefcase, starts digging through the pockets, the smallest ones first. Finally he digs out a small black bag with a collection of condoms and a small tube inside. As he shucks off his own pants and gets himself ready, he glances over toward the bed again. Jin has shifted himself sideways at the foot, knees bent and heels on the edge of the mattress, one hand skimming over the head of his cock as he watches Kame roll on the condom. Kame has to look away again to keep his fingers steady, stop them slipping.

Once he’s done, Kame walks back over to the bedside and shifts up between Jin’s knees, hooks his arms up underneath them and presses close—not inside yet, just looming, letting Jin feel his weight. Jin tilts his hips upwards, inviting, and Kame can see the need all over him.

He reaches down between them and lines himself up, starts pushing in again. The first slide is quick, and Jin draws in a sharp breath—but he’s nodding when Kame checks in with him again, spreading his knees a little further. Kame keeps going, pushes all the way in.

He breathes a moment. Steadies his grip on Jin’s thighs, his balance against the side of the mattress, the grip of Jin around him again, tight and firm, too familiar. He pulls out again slowly and then pushes back in, harder, firmer, and Jin breathes _yes_ , his eyes still on Kame and his hand still on his cock. A light tease, quick strokes, double-time to Kame’s thrusts. Kame watches him and pushes in harder, tries to make him shudder, make him twitch.

Some part of him wants to make Jin hurt, but the bigger part of him wants to make Jin feel. Make Jin breathe his name, beg, need, the same way Kame needs. The same way he’s always needed Jin.

Jin makes a noise of complaint when Kame brushes his hand out of the way and wraps his own around Jin’s cock instead—but he gives an approving moan when Kame just starts jerking him harder, pushing the rhythm further. Jin spreads his arms out above his head and lets him, thighs tensing around Kame’s arms, breath hitching. Harder and faster and _more_. Kame’s got him right where he wants him, caught between his hand and his dick, between watching and feeling, murmuring Kame’s name and pushing helplessly into his grip. Kame flicks his thumb roughly over the tip, and then he feels it ripple through him, through Jin’s thighs and hips and cock, spreading white on his stomach.

Kame doesn’t leave him time to breath through it. He adjusts his grip again and keeps going, takes, feeling the jitters of Jin’s comedown against his cock, hard and fast, not far now, and Jin just lets him have it. Soon he’s over the edge as well, emptying and shuddering, spinning towards the surface.

His knees feel weak. Everywhere is weak, drained and spent. He stares down at Jin spread out before him, and Jin looks the same. He notices Kame’s eyes lingering over the come on his stomach, on his shrinking dick, and his lips tilt upwards with a smile.

“Fuck,” Jin mumbles, eyes falling closed again, head tilted back as he catches his breath.

Kame carefully pulls out, let’s Jin’s feet sink to the floor. He tugs off the condom and puts a knot in it, drops it in the wastebasket. Jin is clumsily scooting himself further back on the bed, his muscles shot, trying to pull his knees up again to find a more comfortable position, and Kame gets this wave of… who knows, nostalgia or something, some feeling down deep, from before, and all he wants to do is fall down beside Jin and pull him in, fold their legs together and sleep, a tangled mess.

_‘They took you away from me.’_

He turns away. Goes into the bathroom and finds one of the hand towels, wipes the sweat from his neck, the edge of his hair. Then he wets the towel underneath the faucet and wipes himself down, brings it out to Jin and does the same for him. Efficiently, no fuss. Jin just lies still tamely, watching him—but Kame doesn’t look him in the eye. He’s not ready to face what he’ll find there, no matter what it is.

Once he’s put the towel away, he slips on one of the bathrobes from the closet, tying the belt loosely around his waist. He drops the other one on top of Jin. Then he returns to his side of the bed, settling against the headboard with a rumpled corner of the duvet pulled across his lap. He stares down at the ashtray where his cigarette butt is still smoking slightly. Presses it down with a fingertip to smother out the ember.

The mattress moves as Jin adjusts himself onto his side, still spread out across the foot of the bed. Kame glances over at him as Jin is pulling the robe across his shoulders, sitting up. He doesn’t bother tying the belt, but one trailing end pools in his lap.

Jin seems to be waiting, but Kame isn’t sure what he’s waiting for. Courage, maybe. Sense.

“There was someone on the inside,” Jin says, quietly.

Kame watches him, but doesn’t say anything.

“They weren’t sure who it was—the guy had covered his tracks really carefully. He must have been in there for months, maybe years. We only found out because of that time in Osaka, when those guys double-teamed us. Remember?”

Kame remembers. They’d been lucky to get out of that warehouse alive.

“They said that was bad intelligence,” Kame says.

Jin shakes his head gravely. “Someone was feeding them information. They knew we were coming.”

Kame narrows eyes at him. It could be a lie. It _should_ be a lie—if Jin had tried to sell him a wild story like this last night, he wouldn’t have believed it for a second. Months? _Years_ , without anybody knowing?

“Why wouldn’t I have been told?” Kame asks.

Jin’s eyes shadow slightly. “Because they wanted to protect you.”

“Protect me from what?”

“The mole had low-level clearance,” Jin says. “No faces or names, just tactical information—but he had info on the two of us, had figured out like eighty percent of our secure codes, and was really close to cracking the personnel files. They needed someone to go after him, and it had to be one of us. They needed a sacrifice.”

Kame swallows. “And they chose you.”

A bitter smile pulls at Jin’s lips. “What else is new?”

Kame tries not to feel it. Not to feel relieved, just buy into this lock stock and barrel because it’s what he’d rather believe. That it was someone else’s fault, someone else who tore his life apart. Not the one who’d been his partner.

But god, he wants to believe.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Kame says.

Jin looks down at the mattress between them. “Because it was a suicide mission,” he says. “They had to leak my name to the informant to get him to expose himself.”

Everything sinks. For a moment, Kame can’t breathe.

“After that, I had to take him down before he passed on the information or I would have a target on my back from every direction. And even if I succeeded, I could never go back. I’d get a pension, a foreign passport, and a strong recommendation that I never set foot on Japanese soil again. Happy retirement.”

“You still should have told me,” Kame says. But the words come out thin, scratchy.

“I thought it would be better this way,” Jin says. “If you believed whatever story they fed you, maybe that would be easier than knowing I was gone and didn’t want to be.”

“I don’t care what’s fucking _easy_ ,” Kame snaps. “You should have told me the truth.”

Jin looks up at him again, a little surprised. It’s only then that Kame realizes what he’s said.

The truth.

“I’m sorry,” Jin murmurs, his eyes softening. “I wanted to. I really did.”

Kame pushes back the covers and crawls down to the foot of the bed until he’s kneeling over Jin. He digs his fingers into Jin’s hair and pulls his face upwards, pulls him forward, kissing him firmly on the mouth. Punishingly, and then a bit more softly. Slowly.

He leans back again. Not far.

“Don’t ever lie to me again,” Kame says.

Jin looks him in the eyes, his fingertips curling in the fabric at his sides. “I won’t,” he says. “I promise.”

 

~ $ ~ $ ~ $ ~

 

The air is crisp and cool coming off the harbor, carrying the clang of chains and moorings onto the docks. Kame turns out the collar of the stolen uniform shirt—the nondescript beige jumpsuit of a crewman—and moves away from the storage room door. He hears Jin close the door behind them and follow him along the edge of the dock building toward the moorings.

When he reaches the corner, Kame peeks out around the edge, carefully. The passenger ramp is on the far end of the dock, hidden from view by a tall stack of shipping containers that are in the process of being unloaded from the ship. At the near end is a wide stretch of dock where a row of large trucks are lined up, waiting for their cargo. At each of the moorings are a couple of gangplanks to allow the dock crew to enter and leave the ship during the unloading process. There are men in uniform running back and forth, operating the cranes and helping to affix containers to the waiting vehicles.

No one takes notice of the pair of them as they step out from behind the building and join the fray. Kame tilts his hard hat lower against the sun and starts up one of the gangplanks, passing under the shadows of the cranes, and another slowly lowering shipping container.

Once they’re on deck, it’s easy to remain inconspicuous. Jin taps Kame on the shoulder and motions away from the wide container bed towards a set of metal stairs marked by yellow and black caution tape, leading down into the belly of the ship. They take stairs down three floors, descending away from the noise of the deck and into the quiet hum of the engines.

“Which way?” Jin murmurs, as they land on the passenger deck. They don’t have any way of knowing what cabin Makino might have been staying in. The passenger complement didn’t list him at all, but that’s not surprising.

Kame glances up and down the corridor. “You take the right, I’ll take the left. If you don’t find him, circle back here in fifteen,” he says.

Jin nods curtly and turns away. Kame watches him until he reaches the first door off of the corridor and carefully peers inside, then disappears from view. Then he turns to the left and begins his own search.

Most of the rooms are empty. They look like they haven’t been used or slept in at all on this journey—a single here, a double there, a twin with bunk beds and a small wooden desk. Even the small kitchen area midway down the corridor hardly looks disturbed. It’s good news if there aren’t many passengers on this trip—fewer people likely to get caught in a crossfire—but it’s a little disconcerting to see so little evidence of anyone having been here at all.

They haven’t seen Tsai yet either. He’d presumably be waiting at the passenger exit by now—but they can’t get near him, so they have no way of knowing that for sure. What if Koki’s information was wrong?

A little further on down the corridor, there’s a door marked Crew Only. Kame tests the handle—it’s not locked.

He slowly turns it, and pushes the door open. Everything inside is dim, lit at odd angles by a series of sallow green neon lights running along the walls. The room is larger than the others, at least three times as long as one of the cabins, and as far as he can tell it runs the width of the ship. In the middle of the room are a tangle of whitewashed pipes and cranks and exhaust vents, running floor to ceiling, and up along the walls.

He lets the door close quietly behind him, stays close to the nearest cluster of pipes, and listens.

Nothing.

He takes a few steps further, peering through the maze, eyes adjusting to the safety lights. There’s a narrow corridor leading off to the right, and then another column of pipes, several feet of it, before another space.

As he sets foot out into the second gap, something barrels into him from behind.

They’ve got him by the arms, still out of sight—too strong, slightly bigger than Kame, trying to take his legs out from under him. Kame pushes back, wrestles one of his arms free just in time to catch a dark-gloved wrist with a gun in it, keep it pointed away. He slams his weight backwards, twice, three times, shoving the attacker up against the pipes. The gun goes off on the second impact, rings out against metal, and a plume of steam spews out above them, clouding the air.

Kame uses the distraction to twist around and thrust upwards with a palm, knocking the attacker back—but the gun slips through Kame’s fingers, and soon they’re standing four feet apart, Kame and the man in dark, each pointing a gun at the other’s face.

“Give me the key,” Kame says. “We can both get out of this alive.”

The man in dark chuckles, brings a second hand up to steady the pistol. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

It was worth a try.

Kame’s finger is on the trigger when another dark shape barrels out from behind the pipes and latches onto the man in dark. Kame dives to the side as another shot rings out.

A crack.

A slump.

There’s someone standing there, someone else lying motionless on the ground, and Kame’s heart leaps into his throat. He doesn’t want to think it, raises his gun again and takes a step forward before he even has the chance.

The steam clears slightly in front of him, and… it’s Jin. Jin is standing there, just visible under the greenish lights. The man in dark is lying at his feet, his gun in Jin’s hand.

In Jin’s other hand is a small black box.

Kame breathes a sigh of relief, lowers his gun. “Are you okay?” he says, taking another step toward Jin.

But then there’s a click, and Kame stops. Suddenly Jin’s eyes are on him, gleaming green in the dim. The gun in Jin’s hand is trained on him as well.

“What?” Kame says. It’s cold, deep in his stomach. Cold, and growing colder

The truth.

He should have known better.

“Sorry,” Jin says quietly, steadily. “I had no choice.”

Another shot. Searing pain in Kame’s leg as it collapses under him, but that’s nothing compared to how he feels everywhere else.

He should be fighting it. He should be clawing back, he could take Jin out with a shot, just from here, he should… he should have fucking _known better_.

But Jin is gone.

 

~ $ ~ $ ~ $ ~

 

The reception area is bright and quiet, black and chrome furniture and a whole wall of windows overlooking West Shinjuku. Kame leans on the metal cane they gave him at the infirmary as he stands by the window, looking out over the city. Maybe it’s just the tint on the glass, but somehow everything seems a little gray. A little cold.

“Kitagawa-san will see you now,” the receptionist says. Kame glances over to see her holding open the door to the inner office.

He makes his way at an easy hobble, trying not to look like he’s leaning too much into the cane. The door closes quietly behind him, and it’s another few yards across carpet to the chair opposite the desk. When he sinks into the leather, Johnny looks up.

This room is also full of windows, and all the colder for it.

“How’s the leg?” Johnny asks.

“Not too bad,” Kame says, with what he hopes is an easy smile. “It’s a superficial injury.”

The bullet went straight through his calf—only broke the fibula, a few inches below the knee. Still, he’d been in no shape to manage the jump into the water after that. He’d had to hide from Tsai’s men as they searched the ship, couldn’t call for an extraction team until he was back on land. By then there was no sign of Jin anywhere—even Jin’s bag was missing from the hotel room.

Johnny nods approvingly. “Glad to hear that. Are they recommending any sort of rehabilitation regimen?”

Kame shakes his head. “Not just yet. They want to see how it heals first. If I’m able to stay on my feet a reasonable amount during recovery, rehabilitation might not be necessary.”

“That’s good,” Johnny says, nodding again. “That’s very good. We’ll have you fighting fit again in no time.”

Kame nods, smile tightening just a little. Fighting fit. All the toy soldiers, standing in a row.

“So tell me, Kamenashi,” Johnny says. Pleasantries over, now down to business. “Have you remembered anything further about the counteragent? Physical details? Anything else that might have been said during the exchange?”

Jin flashes through his mind again, dark and green in the light. His face and his eyes. His mouth. His fingers, curled around the trigger.

_‘Sorry.’_

“No,” Kame says. “Nothing beyond what I wrote in my report. I hit my head when I fell,” he explains. True enough. “Some of the details are a bit fuzzy.”

“Ah,” Johnny says, nodding understandingly again. “I assume your head injury has been treated as well?”

Kame nods. “Yes, of course.”

“Good. Good, I’m glad to hear that.” Johnny smiles at him again, that crinkly old man smile that Kame has known for so many years. Known and trusted.

He feels… tired.

“Well,” Johnny says, with an air of getting on with things. “I’ll let you get back to your recovery again, if there’s nothing else to report. Please do let me know if you remember any more details, or if there’s anything else you need. Anything at all.”

“Yes, sir,” Kame says.

Johnny is already shifting focus to the papers on his desk as Kame gets to his feet again. His leg twinges a bit as the soft cast resettles, and he adjusts the position of the cane to make his way out of the room.

He nods to the receptionist as he moves through the outer office. Outside in the corridor, he finds Takizawa standing there with one shoulder against the wall. He looks like he’s waiting for something.

“Can you come with me for a sec?” Takizawa asks, motioning down the hall.

Kame tenses slightly. He prefers not to go into meetings without knowing what they’re about—but Takizawa has seniority, is part of the inner circle. Kame can hardly say no.

“Of course,” he says.

Takizawa leads the way a few yards down the hallway, past a couple more offices and into one of the windowless inner conference rooms. He holds the door open for Kame, allows him to pass. Once Kame is inside, he closes it behind them.

“Do you want to sit down?” he offers, indicating Kame’s leg.

“I’m okay,” Kame says, shaking his head. “I sit a lot these days. This is better for the circulation.”

Takizawa nods, gives a little shrug. Then he faces Kame across the table, hands in his pockets.

Kame glances around the conference room, but there’s no one else here. No visible materials or recording devices. It’s just empty.

“Have you heard from him since Hong Kong?” Takizawa asks.

Kame looks back at him. Doesn’t let the surprise show as more than curiosity. “Heard from who?”

“Jin,” Takizawa says.

Kame takes that in. Lowers his brow into a puzzled frown and shakes his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t heard from him in two years.”

It’s convincing, he knows it is—he can feel it when he’s off his game. But Takizawa doesn’t even consider buying it.

“He was with you in Hong Kong,” Takizawa continues. “In your hotel room. He helped you track down the key, and when you found it, he double-crossed you.”

_What the fuck?_

It’s not… there’s no pokerfacing his way out of this one. Takizawa already knows.

“How do you know that?” Kame says.

“That’s not important right now,” Takizawa says.

“The hell it isn’t,” Kame argues. “Who else knows?”

“Just me.”

“Bullshit.”

“You don’t have to believe me,” Takizawa says, simply. “That’s up to you. Why didn’t you mention him in your report?”

Kame doesn’t say anything.

“Kamenashi,” Takizawa warns. “I asked you a question.”

“I don’t know,” he says, in the end. It’s the closest he can manage to the truth.

Takizawa doesn’t look impressed. “That key is very valuable, and very dangerous. It’s still out there somewhere, and we need to know everything there is to know about who’s got it, and what they’re going to do with it. You know that. So why didn’t you put this information in your report?”

Kame looks him in the eye. It’s there, in his mind, but he hasn’t given voice to it before. Even to himself.

“Because I don’t believe it is still out there,” Kame says, quietly.

“That’s not your place to determine.”

Kame doesn’t look away. “Maybe it is.”

Takizawa just stares him down for a moment, like he’s waiting for Kame to crack, give in under the pressure. Be the good soldier.

But then a small smile curves his lips. “I thought so.”

Wait. What? Kame frowns. “You thought what?”

Takizawa doesn’t answer. Instead he pulls his hands out of his pockets and brings out a familiar small black box. He puts it on the table between them.

Kame reaches over and takes the box, popping open the metal latch. The interior is padded with foam, meant to protect the contents—but the contents themselves are a hunk of twisted metal, scratched and mangled. The remains of the hard drive.

“How did you get this?”

“Jin sent it to me,” Takizawa says.

Kame glances up in surprise. “You’re in contact with him?”

Takizawa nods slowly. “Apparently he was working on behalf of Yamada-sensei, the scientist in charge of the research,” he explains. “He and Jin had crossed paths a few years ago, before he left the agency, and kept in touch. Yamada-sensei had concerns that his work was not being put to good use by the lab board or the research council—and after the lab executives got us involved in the case, Yamada-sensei reached out to Jin directly to see if he could head off whoever we sent. Jin didn’t have any way of knowing it would be you.”

Kame swallows, tries to take that in. Strictly pro-bono, he’d said. If this is true, that would seem to check out. But still, for fuck’s sake, walking into this with no weapons or equipment when he _knows_ he’s likely to run into an agent. Some of the others wouldn’t even have bothered turning him in—they’d have shot him on sight.

“Have you shown this to Johnny?” Kame asks, looking up again.

Takizawa nods. “Johnny knows.”

“If he knows, then why was he just interrogating me as if he didn’t know?”

Takizawa gives him a steady look. “It’s hardly the first time he’s kept you in the dark, is it?”

That puts a bitter twist in Kame’s stomach. He glances down at the hard drive again. Fucking… he was _just in there_ with him. All the questions about his leg and his head, and not a word about this. Not a word about anything.

“He’s not after the hard drive anymore,” Takizawa says. “He just wants to know who destroyed it. And he’s pretty sure you know who it was.”

Kame looks up. “Are you going to tell him?”

Takizawa shakes his head.

“Why not?”

“Because,” Takizawa says. “There are those of us in the inner circle who feel it’s better if Johnny doesn’t know everything.”

That sounds… god. Almost mutinous.

The upper ranks have always seemed like such a monolith, everyone operating in concert, under Johnny’s direction. But if Johnny is hiding things from the lower ranks, and members of the inner circle are hiding things from Johnny himself…

It’s disturbing. Disturbing, and it shouldn’t make Kame feel relieved. The disappearing asshole doesn’t deserve that.

But, he’s relieved.

“You should know, he’s a wreck,” Takizawa says, quietly. They’re not talking about Johnny anymore. “I don’t believe he did this to hurt you. He did what he thought was right.”

Kame nods slightly, still staring down at the mangled hard drive. “I’m not sure he was wrong about that,” he admits.

“Then what are you still doing here?” Takizawa murmurs. “Go.”

“It’s not as simple as that.”

“Isn’t it?” Takizawa says.

Kame looks up at him.

He’s always liked Takizawa—they all have. But this is… strange, everything backwards, Johnny telling him one thing and asking another, the inner circle hiding information from the people at the top. Maybe Jin was right, maybe everything is not what it seems. Neither black nor white—just several shades of gray.

He’s not sure what to believe anymore. Johnny or Takizawa, the person they told him Jin was, or the person he knew. The person who left him bleeding in the bowels of a container ship, or the one who promised he would never lie to Kame. Never again.

_‘I had no choice.’_

__Takizawa reaches into his back pocket and takes out a U.S. Passport, sets it on the table in front of Kame. Kame picks it up and leafs through the pages—his picture is in the front, name, birthday. Born in California.

“It’s simpler than you think,” Takizawa says.

Kame lets the passport fall closed.

 

~ $ ~ $ ~ $ ~

 

It’s dark. The sun set gradually over the last few hours, and now it’s nearly pitch black—so dark Kame can’t even see his hand in front of his face.

There’s a jangle of keys in the lock, the sound of the door opening, and then, finally, there’s light. Kame keeps his seat in the chair across from the couch, in the still-dim corner of the living room. Just waits.

He hears shoes in the hallway, a coat shrugging off. The keys jangle again, and then clank in the dish on the side table. Floorboards underfoot, and Jin appears around the corner.

There’s a sharp intake of breath, a freeze, as he spots Kame sitting there. For a long moment, Jin just stares.

Kame lets him.

“Did Johnny send you?” Jin says. His voice is low. Wary.

“Nope,” Kame says. Keeps his face impassive. “This was all me.”

Jin glances subtly around at the walls, like he’s checking for signs of a break-in. Maybe cameras, some other trap. “How did you know where to find me?”

“I have contacts,” Kame says. “You didn’t cut ties with everybody when you left.”

Jin’s eyes narrow slightly, focused on Kame’s face. Trying to read him. “He told you?”

Kame nods slowly.

“How much did he tell you?”

“Pretty much everything,” Kame says. “I think.”

Jin takes that in, nodding slowly. Another breath, and it seems to come a little bit easier this time. “So… you’re not here to kill me.”

Kame huffs a breath, glances away. “Probably not,” he says, blandly.

When he looks back at Jin, a little more of the wariness has fallen away, softened. Jin can’t seem to take his eyes off Kame, but he keeps himself on the other side of the couch. Not too close.

“How’s your leg?” Jin asks, nodding towards it.

“Not bad,” he answers. “Pretty much healed by now—the aim was terrible, didn’t even graze the tibia. It’s kind of amazing, actually, because I happen to know the guy who attacked me is a pretty good shot.”

A small smile curves Jin’s lips, and he glances away. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“I know,” Kame says. “It’s a messy business. People get hurt.”

Jin nods slowly. “I’m sorry anyway.”

Kame pushes himself to his feet. There’s still a bit of a twinge sometimes, just skin and bone and muscle pulling themselves back into shape. But it’s nothing he can’t handle—he’s had worse.

Jin’s eyes follow him as he rounds the end of the couch. When he comes to a stop right in front of Jin and lifts a hand to brush away a strand of hair, he can see Jin’s breath quicken. See him lean into it, just a little bit. Kame takes a step closer and slides an arm around Jin’s waist gently, not quite bringing their bodies together. Jin holds still for him, lets him get close. Watching.

When his eyes fall closed, Kame tightens his grip. Catches him off balance, turns and slams him up against the wall. Traps him.

Jin is panting, caught, eyes still closed, and Kame presses up against him, lips against his ear. “You lied to me,” he murmurs.

Jin shakes his head, as much as he can with Kame’s hand in his hair. “I told you the truth the whole time. You weren’t listening.”

“Tell me something true, then,” Kame says, brushing his lips up the side of Jin’s neck. “I’ll listen this time.”

Jin’s hands are settling over his hips, pulling, trying not to pull.

“I love you,” Jin says, quietly into Kame’s hair.

Kame sighs into Jin’s neck and wraps him tighter, the brush turning to kisses. It’s the truth. He has to believe that. Nothing makes any sense without Jin.

“How long can you stay?” Jin asks.

Kame pulls back to look at him. He’s still pressed against the wall and doesn’t look interested in moving anytime soon. His eyes are warm on Kame’s face, drinking him in.

Kame untangles his hand from Jin’s hair and reaches into his back pocket—pulls out the passport. Jin stares at it for a moment, a little frown between his brows, until he realizes what it is. What it means.

Then he draws in a breath and looks Kame in the eye.

“You left?” he says quietly.

Kame nods.

Suddenly Jin’s arms go tight everywhere around him, tight enough to lift him to his toes, and they’re stumbling away from the wall. Jin is kissing him—his face, his hair, his mouth—and the couch bumps up against the back of Kame’s thighs, and all he can do is hold onto Jin and enjoy the ride.

He laughs. “Akanishi, you’re kind of busting my flow here,” he murmurs as Jin pushes aside the collar of his shirt to kiss the hollow of his shoulder.

“I don’t care,” Jin says, and Kame can hear the grin, feel the laugh against his skin. It feels raw and vulnerable, like new skin over an old wound.

Kame curls his fingers into Jin’s hair again and gently pulls him up for a kiss. It’s softer, sweeter than before. The way they used to be.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” Jin murmurs against his lips.

The truth. That’s the truth too.

Kame kisses him back, breathes into his mouth, “So did I.”

Two hours later, when they’re lying together tangled in the bedsheets, Kame turns his face into Jin’s hair and kisses the back of his neck.

“So, where do we go from here?”

Jin tilts his head into the pillow slightly, exposing his neck for another kiss, or three. There’s a happy little sigh when Kame complies.

“Anywhere we want.”


End file.
